Bell Irvin Wiley

"Between 1820 and 1861 more than 12,000 American blacks made the long voyage to Liberia. Many were members of families that had been brought to America in the 1600s. In the jungles of West Africa these new settlers battled virulent tropical diseases, marauding wild beasts, and fierce native tribesmen; with only basic hand tools (draft animals could hardly survive the climate) they faced the challenge of carving out fields from one of the world's densest forests. To former masters and to their own people the new Liberians wrote letters about physical deprivations, often asking for help; they also reported proudly on the political progress of their adopted country, which became a republic in 1847. Despite the discouragement and disappointment reflected in many of the letters, the settlers demonstrated a remarkable capacity to overcome the hostility of nature and to endure with courage and dignity. Bell I. Wiley has collected and annotated 273 letters written from Liberia by former slaves... To read the letters is to reach a new understanding of the meaning of slavery and of freedom; one senses the strength of the black family that distance did not splinter; one wonders at the religious faith that endured through the unimagined hardships and disasters"--

Letters from Liberia, 1833-1869

Slaves No More

Offers a composite portrait of the Southern soldier during the Civil War

The Common Soldier of the Confederacy

The Life of Johnny Reb

"Southern women of the 1860's, as here revealed with the help of their own letters and diaries, were decidedly not the clinging vines described in romantic writings of later years. In a very real sense, the tragic Civil War was, for the Confederates, a women's war. Women were ardent in advocating secession. Women were indefatigable in running farms and families and infirmaries while their men fought. Throughout the hopeless war, the women conducted themselves in ways that earned the solid respect of their men, and in ways that won for women the first measured gains toward equality ... Bell Irvin Wiley writes at length of such exemplary Confederate women, Mary Boykin Chesnut, a genuine intellectual who became the wife of a senator and military aide to Jefferson Davis; Virginia Tunstall Clay, whose husband (a U.S. senator and then a Confederate senator) was, after Lincoln's assassination, held at Fort Monroe for a year without trial; and Varina Howell Davis, the aristocratic First Lady of the Confederacy"--Jacket.

Confederate Women

Robert Roswell Palmer

Kent Roberts Greenfield

The Organization of Ground Combat Troops

In this companion to The Life of Johnny Reb, Bell Irvin Wiley explores the daily lives of the men in blue who fought to save the Union. With the help of many soldiers' letters and diaries, Wiley explains who these men were and why they fought, how they reacted to combat and the strain of prolonged conflict, and what they thought about the land and the people of Dixie. This fascinating social history reveals that while the Yanks and the Rebs fought for very different causes, the men on both sides were very much the same. "This wonderfully interesting book is the finest memorial the Union soldier is ever likely to have.... [Wiley] has written about the Northern troops with an admirable objectivity, with sympathy and understanding and profound respect for their fighting abilities. He has also written about them with fabulous learning and considerable pace and humor.

Bell Irvin Wiley

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